What happens to your child’s faith when they leave home for college? On this episode of Refining Rhetoric, host Robert Bortins sits down with Dr. Finny Kuruvilla — Harvard MD, MIT engineer, homeschool dad of nine, and founder of Sattler College — to discuss the crisis in Christian higher education and why he built a tuition-free, classical Christian college in downtown Boston. From the iron law of discipleship to Greek and Hebrew in the original languages, this conversation is essential listening for any homeschool family thinking about what comes after graduation. Dr. Finny Kuruvilla grew up in Southern California in the public school system — and what he saw there shaped everything that came after. Two things stayed with him: the exposure to harmful content and ideas during those formative years, and the creeping shift from caring what his parents thought to caring what his peers thought. When he and his wife Laura started having children, they were determined to reverse that dynamic. Today they homeschool nine children in Boston, from college age down to nine months old. The conversation opens with Dr. Kuruvilla’s counter-cultural view of children as assets rather than liabilities — a biblical recovery of the idea that children are a heritage from the Lord, not a threat to the rainforest. His older kids run a snow shoveling and lawn raking business. The family’s goal is human flourishing, not the accumulation of experiences that require both parents to work full time. From there, Robert draws him into the crisis he observed from the inside: seven years as a resident advisor at Harvard, watching bright young Christians have their faith “crash and burn” under the weight of an environment where 99% of faculty would not identify as born-again. The official statistic bears this out — 70% of church-attending students stop attending by the time they finish college. Dr. Kuruvilla calls it the iron law of discipleship: “Everyone, when fully trained, will be like his teacher” (Luke 6). Whether parents intend it or not, the law operates. Sattler College was built as a direct response to the three Cs. On cost: no tuition, with a room-and-board rate of around $9,000 per year in downtown Boston. On discipleship: the learn-do-teach model from Ezra 7, weekly same-gender journey groups for confession and mutual accountability, monthly mentorship meetings, and a campus culture built around the question “how did I share my faith with an unbeliever this week?” On curriculum: Greek and Hebrew required of every student, taught communicatively so that 80% of class time is spent actually in the target language. The freshman class travels to Greece at the end of the year to use their Koine Greek on location in Athens, Corinth, Thessalonica, and Philippi. The results are striking. Sattler is currently ranked number one in the country for MCAT scores — above Harvard and Stanford — and biology students are regularly publishing in peer-reviewed journals while working in Harvard Medical School labs. What You’ll Learn • Why Dr. Kuruvilla — after graduating from Caltech, MIT, and Harvard — chose to homeschool all nine of his children • The three Cs that define what’s broken in higher education: core curriculum, Christian discipleship, and cost • What the “iron law of discipleship” is and why it should terrify every parent sending a child to a secular university • Why 70% of church-attending students stop attending church by the time they graduate college • How Sattler College addresses all three of those failures — including charging zero tuition • Why Sattler is the only college in America that requires all students to learn Greek and Hebrew • How Sattler students ended up outscoring Harvard and Stanford on the MCAT • What the “learn, do, teach” model from Ezra 7 looks like in practice — and why spiritual obesity is as real as physical obesity • How mission drift destroyed Harvard — and the specific bylaws and “poison pill” structures Sattler uses to prevent the same fate • Why Christian investors are unknowingly funding abortion, pornography, and gambling through their 401(k)s • What the Tower of Babel story in Genesis reveals about the power of organized Christians
Resources Mentioned • Sattler College: https://sattler.edu/ • Eventide Funds (faith-based investing): https://www.eventideinvestments.com/ • King Jesus Claims His Church by Dr. Finny Kuruvilla — available wherever books are sold
This episode of Refining Rhetoric is sponsored by: Classical Conversations’ new 2026 Product Line
This April, Classical Conversations is launching an exciting portfolio of new products designed to strengthen math fluency, develop critical reasoning skills, and equip families with practical tools for classical, Christian homeschooling. From flashcard resources and reasoning curriculum to hands-on manipulatives and a foundational parent resource, these releases deepen the classical learning journey for families at every level. Visit ClassicalConversations.com/WhatsNew/ to explore the entire April 2026 product collection and start strengthening your family’s classical, Christian education today. Don’t miss the special CC Bookstore sale from April 7 – 28!